Picky Eater

I'm sure you've seen the movies and the TV shows where goats are eating shirts, tires, cans, books, etc. This is actually a stereotype. Goats are pretty picky eaters. When I walked Rusty, I wanted to give him rewards that I could keep in my pocket and just take out every time he did something good. I started with carrots. I've seen goats eat carrots before, so I thought, "If goats will eat anything, why not a carrot?" I brought a bag of carrots for him and held one out in my hand for him to eat. He walked around my hand and started sniffing around my face. He then licked my hair and started chewing on my hair! My hair! I pushed him away from me and held my hand in front of his mouth. He smelled the carrot, but refused to eat it. Next, were cucumbers and celery leaves. Rusty took one good lick at the cucumber but decided that he would not be eating it. He nibbled of the very tip of the celery leaf, but he wouldn't eat the rest of it! Lettuce, apple slices, and broccoli. Wouldn't touch them. I even gave the broccoli to the other goat owners to see if they wanted to try it with their goats. Neither of the other goats would touch the broccoli either. I guess that's something that humans and goats have in common! After all of this, my dad searched up foods that goats like. Apparently pine needles are good for goats, but they can't eat the pine cones. I put pine needles into Rusty's feeder and let me tell you... He went to town on those needles! Apparently, pine needles are a natural parasite killer in the goat intestines. I didn't know he would like pine needles opposed to apples, but the more you know!